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This article offers a novel theorisation of voter turnout by looking at electoral revolutions, i.e. large rapid changes in electoral participation. Since voting is conceptualised as a habit, turnout is generally seen as static, with its small and large variations dismissed as context-dependent. Instead, this work’s main hypothesis is that dramatic voter turnout variations follow rapid transformations in the credibility and competition of national politics. These transformations are reconstructed by following the national political process in the years preceding the electoral revolutions that took place in France (1967), Britain (2001), Honduras (2013) and Costa Rica (1998). Moving from a capacious framework, this article’s parsimonious theory shows how electoral revolutions follow the strengthening/weakening of oppositions, increasing/decreasing institutional credibility and growing/waning party system differentiation.
Between 2005 and 2015, a drastic wave of decline in voter turnout affected a series of presidential elections in Central Asia and the Caucasus. To explain this phenomenon, we perform an innovative comparative study using news coverage of four electoral case studies in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Armenia. This analysis is then used to build a new theory, which explains significant falls in participation as outcomes of a composite process of strengthening of incumbent regimes, weakening of oppositions, and generally reduced electoral stakes. Common patterns are identified across all four cases, suggesting that the willingness of the people to refuse to turn out to vote appears largely independent of the level of democracy. We maintain that, across the region, citizens chose to spurn the ballot box because of reduced electoral competition.
This article systematically examines the academic literature on personalism and personalization in political parties. Its comprehensive review uses existing studies to (1) demonstrate that personalism has a rich and complex history; (2) outline conceptual differences within the literature related to size, clientelism, internal organization, centralization, and mediatic image; (3) trace patterns of institutionalization and de-personalization of personal parties; and (4) evaluate existing empirical and methodological approaches to the topic. Finally, the conclusion advocates for the adoption of a clear research agenda and proposes conceptual, quantitative, and discursive alternatives to what has already been done.
While Costa Rica has retained democratic stability, it has transitioned from high-turnout bipartidism to lower participation within a multi-party system. This paper analyzes the transformative 1994-1998 legislature, its antecedents, and its consequences. It, therefore, explores a political watershed where electoral participation falls dramatically under a stable party system with no authoritarian transition, labelled here as captured democracy. Methodologically, this work performed qualitative coding of media sources to trace how focusing events changed the national political context. Finally, it shows how the simultaneous weakening of the main parties Unidad and Liberación, a bipartisan pact, and several corruption scandals transformed Costa Rican democracy.
Resumen: Transiciones a una democracia cautiva: Las elecciones en Costa Rica de 1998 como coyuntura crítica
Aunque Costa Rica ha conservado la estabilidad democrática, ha pasado de un bipartidismo de alta participación a una participación menor dentro de un sistema multipartidista. Este artículo analiza la transformadora legislatura de 1994-1998, sus antecedentes y sus consecuencias. Explora, por tanto, una línea divisoria de aguas políticas en la que la participación electoral cayó drásticamente bajo un sistema de partidos estable y sin transición autoritaria, etiquetado aquí como democracia cautiva. Metodológicamente, este trabajo realiza una codificación cualitativa de las fuentes de los medios de comunicación para rastrear cómo centrándose en los acontecimientos cambia el contexto político nacional. Finalmente, se muestra cómo el debilitamiento simultáneo de los principales partidos Unidad y Liberación, un pacto bipartidista y varios escándalos de corrupción transformaron la democracia costarricense.
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